So in today's lesson we reviewed last weeks lesson by going through how we had set up our blogger accounts. We looked at how to edit the pages and posts again and went through everything to make sure everyone understood how to use our blogs.
We went through the appropriate style and language we should be using so that we can ensure it looks professional. After all who could be reading our blogs? They are open to anyone including prospective employers and professional agencies. We should look at other blogs to help us develop our own and give feedback and comment's on other people.
Three short term targets i am going to set myself are:-
1 To take more photograph's every week.
2 To do more research ie whenever i here another photographers name i will jot it down and look them up.
3. To take more note of images that are all around me ie in magazines and on billboards and in any other forms of the media (newspapers, Tv, film etc).
Three long term targets i am going to set myself are:-
1 To look at career opportunities within photography and film
2 To broaden my knowledge and technical skills within photography
3 To become a better photographer as a result of the things mentioned above therefore achieving my goal to pass my BA degree.
We were also given three sites to go and look at to start off our research into organizations which can support our awareness of the photographic industry. They were :-
Association of Photographers;
http://home.the-aop.org/
British Journal of Photography;
http://www.bjp-online.com/
Royal Photographic Society;
http://www.rps.org/
CASE STUDY DIANE ARBUS
Today we were given a brief to case study a contemporary professional photographer in terms of the trajectory of their career. A list of possibilities were given to start people off but we were also told we could use our own instincts and pick one ourselves if we so wanted. I decided to case study Diane Arbus because i find her work to be awe-inspiring, emotional, confrontational and most of all she forces us to question the morality of photography. As Norman Mailer once famously quoted " Giving a camera to Diane Arbus is like putting a live grenade in the hands of a child".
"Someone else's tragedy is not the same as your own" Diane Arbus.
Diane Arbus was born in 1923 to wealthy Jewish parents David and Gertrude. Her farther David Nemerov was the son of a Russian immigrant and her mother Gertrude was the daughter of the owner's of Russek's fur store. (Possibly were the film Fur an imaginary portrait of Diane Arbus gets its name from) After they were married David oversaw the stores transformation into a modern Fifth Avenue department store that became quite trendy in its time. He was reported to have had an eye for up and coming fashions and trends.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wPkcESNoJdg
Diane was brought up and raised mainly in apartments in and around Central Park West but also in Park Avenue. In her teens around the age of thirteen or fourteen she met Allan Arbus whom she married at the age of eighteen some four years later. Allan studied photography while in the New Jersey signal corps and while married, both of them supported themselves and their two daughters as fashion photographers. Allen was the photographer and Diane was the stylist/director although both took equal credit on their published work. It was from Allan that Diane was given her first camera. Her work for Esquire and Harper's Bazaar began to take on a distinctive look and her subjects mainly actors writers and activists looked strange and obscurely troubling. She has been quoted by Studs Terkel from his :- Hard times : an oral history of the depression as saying " I grew up feeling immune and exempt from circumstance. One of the things i suffered from was that i never felt adversity. I was confirmed in a sense of unreality." We could say that maybe this is why she chose her subjects that she photographed, as they in fact did look like they had felt a condition marked by misfortune, calamity or distress.
Between 1955 and 1957 Diane studied under Lisette Model who encouraged her to further develop her unique style. In 1959 Diane and Allan Arbus divorced.
If we look at most of the body of her work we can see that a lot of her portraits would be posed facing straight into the center of the camera lens, unblinking and with eyes facing the viewer. Almost seeking some kind of special bond from the beholder as if to be looking for understanding or acknowledgment.
In 1970 Diane used to teach a class and she allowed one of her pupils to record her as he was of Asian decent and he used to find it difficult to understand her. She said on the recording " My favorite thing is to go were iv'e never been. For me its just about going into someones house." She has said she always felt like she was going on some blind date and that having a camera gave her a kind of license to do what she did.Also she has said that a lot of people she photographed wanted to be paid that much attention and because it was appropriate for them to be paid that much attention. Diane felt like people liked her and that she was a likeable
Jimi Hendrix and even as a modern day comparison Amy Winehouse.
A lot of her work is now owned by Metropolitan Museum in New York as the Diane Arbus estate gave them her complete archives (as featured in an exhibition two years ago), hundreds of early photographs, negatives and contact prints of more than 7500 rolls of film. They also bought 20 Arbus photograph's from the Fraenkel Gallery in San Fransico which represents her estate. She is remembered as the chronicler of Freaks.
" Its impossible to get out of your skin and into somebody else's" Diane Arbus.
Three short term targets i am going to set myself are:-
1 To take more photograph's every week.
2 To do more research ie whenever i here another photographers name i will jot it down and look them up.
3. To take more note of images that are all around me ie in magazines and on billboards and in any other forms of the media (newspapers, Tv, film etc).
Three long term targets i am going to set myself are:-
1 To look at career opportunities within photography and film
2 To broaden my knowledge and technical skills within photography
3 To become a better photographer as a result of the things mentioned above therefore achieving my goal to pass my BA degree.
We were also given three sites to go and look at to start off our research into organizations which can support our awareness of the photographic industry. They were :-
Association of Photographers;
http://home.the-aop.org/
British Journal of Photography;
http://www.bjp-online.com/
Royal Photographic Society;
http://www.rps.org/
CASE STUDY DIANE ARBUS
Today we were given a brief to case study a contemporary professional photographer in terms of the trajectory of their career. A list of possibilities were given to start people off but we were also told we could use our own instincts and pick one ourselves if we so wanted. I decided to case study Diane Arbus because i find her work to be awe-inspiring, emotional, confrontational and most of all she forces us to question the morality of photography. As Norman Mailer once famously quoted " Giving a camera to Diane Arbus is like putting a live grenade in the hands of a child".
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wPkcESNoJdg
Diane was brought up and raised mainly in apartments in and around Central Park West but also in Park Avenue. In her teens around the age of thirteen or fourteen she met Allan Arbus whom she married at the age of eighteen some four years later. Allan studied photography while in the New Jersey signal corps and while married, both of them supported themselves and their two daughters as fashion photographers. Allen was the photographer and Diane was the stylist/director although both took equal credit on their published work. It was from Allan that Diane was given her first camera. Her work for Esquire and Harper's Bazaar began to take on a distinctive look and her subjects mainly actors writers and activists looked strange and obscurely troubling. She has been quoted by Studs Terkel from his :- Hard times : an oral history of the depression as saying " I grew up feeling immune and exempt from circumstance. One of the things i suffered from was that i never felt adversity. I was confirmed in a sense of unreality." We could say that maybe this is why she chose her subjects that she photographed, as they in fact did look like they had felt a condition marked by misfortune, calamity or distress.
If we look at most of the body of her work we can see that a lot of her portraits would be posed facing straight into the center of the camera lens, unblinking and with eyes facing the viewer. Almost seeking some kind of special bond from the beholder as if to be looking for understanding or acknowledgment.
In 1970 Diane used to teach a class and she allowed one of her pupils to record her as he was of Asian decent and he used to find it difficult to understand her. She said on the recording " My favorite thing is to go were iv'e never been. For me its just about going into someones house." She has said she always felt like she was going on some blind date and that having a camera gave her a kind of license to do what she did.Also she has said that a lot of people she photographed wanted to be paid that much attention and because it was appropriate for them to be paid that much attention. Diane felt like people liked her and that she was a likeable
A lot of her work is now owned by Metropolitan Museum in New York as the Diane Arbus estate gave them her complete archives (as featured in an exhibition two years ago), hundreds of early photographs, negatives and contact prints of more than 7500 rolls of film. They also bought 20 Arbus photograph's from the Fraenkel Gallery in San Fransico which represents her estate. She is remembered as the chronicler of Freaks.
" Its impossible to get out of your skin and into somebody else's" Diane Arbus.
http://masters-of-photography.com/A/arbus/arbus_articles1.html
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wKXwCctBLQU
http://www.profotos.com/education/referencedesk/masters/masters/dianearbus/dianearbus.shtml
http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/biography/arbus.html
Interesting reading and resource material was took from some of the above websites.
CV
In today's session we looked at how important it was for us to start developing our cv's and what they should contain. Below is my cv that i have used in the past but this will change over the next three years while i am at uni.
NAME: Michael John Holt
ADDRESS: 38 Leamington Avenue
Burnley
Lancashire
BB10 3HH
TELEPHONE: 01282 414421
MOBILE: 07530366918
PERSONAL SPECIFICATION:
I am punctual, reliable and work well under pressure. I can communicate well with people on various levels, including being able to deal with confrontational situations in an objective and non-judgmental manner. I have an outgoing personality which has helped me with staff supervision and in dealing with the public. Having held positions of trust, i have had to handle large sums of money and had to deal with stock ordering and rotation. My aim is to find employment in an environment with high standards and productivity and therefore achieving optimum job satisfaction.
EDUCATION:
1980-1985
Moorhead High School
Accrington
Lancashire
(G.C.S.E.) Geography, English, Mathematics, Home Economics and Community Studies.
(O LEVEL) Art.
1986-1988
Nelson and Colne College
Nelson
Lancashire
(City and Guilds) Art, Men's Hairdressing, Ladies Hairdressing and Advanced Hairdressing.
1991-1993
Nelson and Colne College
Nelson
Lancashire
(A Level) Photography, Fine Art and Art History.
(City and Guilds) English Language.
2011-Ongoing
Blackburn College
Blackburn
FDA Photographic Media
EMPLOYMENT:
2008-Present Our Eddie's Barber Shop
Manchester Road
Burnley
Lancashire
I have worked at this establishment under various roles since 2008. I have been in charge of the laddies department and held a managerial position here until i started university in 2011. I still work there and have now took on a part time positon whilst i am studying. I have my own client base and i am fully in charge over all aspects of the shop.
2005-2008 Wetherspoons PLC
Reeds cresent
Watford
I worked back for wetherspoons as a kitchen supervisor with duties including, health and safety, stock control, cooking, helping with the staff rotas and and the general running of a busy kitchen.
2002-2004 Jazz man Grooves
Burnley
Lancashire
Hair cutting, stock control, client consultations, hair colouring, and the day to day running of the business.
2001-2002 Hamleys toy shop
London
E1
This has to have been one of my favorite jobs ever. I worked at Hamleys for just under a year and the only reason i left was because of the low wages at the time and how expensive it was becoming to live in london. Duties included stock taking, sales, demonstrating toys and customer relations. Just before i left i was offered a promotion to supervisor but i had already made up my mind to come back up north.
1999-2001 The Mint
12 Eastsmithfield
London
E1
Kitchen manager in charge of busy kitchen. Duties included, menu planning, stock control, cooking, cleaning, supervising staff, health and safety, book keeping and profit control.
1998-1999 The Three Crowns
Mile end road
London
E2
Manager in charge of the day to day running of the business, stock control, book keeping, health and safety, organizing special charity events, staff supervision, menu planning and the cooking of the pub food.
1994-1998 Wetherspoons PLC
Reeds cresent
Watford
Duty manager working in several wetherspoon outlets incuding one of their flagship public houses in Liverpool street station. Whilst there i was part of a team that managed over fifty staff and duties included: Kitchen management, stock control, book keeping, health and safety and organizing deliveries in a red zoned area of the city of London.
1993-1994 Jazz man grooves
Burnley
Lancashire
Hair cutting, stock control, client consultations, hair colouring, and the day to day running of the business.
1985-1991 The Village Barber
Burnley
Lancashire
I started here on a three year apprenticeship that i completed and worked here for another three years. Duties included; Cutting hair, colouring hair, stock control helping with the training of new apprentices, entering hair competitions and consultation of clients.
INTERESTS:
These include photography, reading books, going to the cinema, visiting art galleries, swimming and cooking.I have also been the photographer for three of my friends weddings and all have been very happy with the photographs that i have taken.
REFLECTIVE PRACTICE
What is reflective practice ?
Reflective practice involves thoughtfully considering your own experiences as you make the connection between knowledge and practice, under the guidance of an experienced professional within your discipline.
Introduced by Donald Schon in 1987
5 ways of reflecting :-
1. Written
2. Video
3. Images
4. Voice Recording
5. Questions And Answers
We looked at Slater's website
http://weareslater.co.uk/
We looked at this website to see and compare an actual professional company in the media industry and to show us how we could and should be conducting/presenting ourselves.
We saw that they used Twitter, videos, a blog, they case studied themselves, they were on Google maps and the website was very easy to navigate. Using this information we can see how a professional business sells itself in an online environment. The more networking we do and the more information we can network about our self's the more people will recognize us.. We looked at one of the videos from the website and for only around a minute in length its amazing to see just how much information they put on it. They showed four case studies and then rounded it of with a fun one word weather report. I have linked it bellow.
http://weareslater.co.uk/slater-tv-latest-bulletin/
"If people can see you , they can understand you." This quote came from Martin our tutor today and is very relevant to today's lesson.
So then we looked at what we need to think about concerning the above information.
1. The skills you have now.
2. The skills needed to fulfill your career.
3. The skills needed to keep ahead of changes and updates.
4. The skills needed to move towards aspirations you hold for yourself.
We were then given 15 minutes to go and take a photograph that describes how it reflects us as a photographer. We had to use if we wanted any style or techniques we had learned so far on the course.
This was my photograph and i took this shot because if we look at the center image it has been censored. Its just a candid shot really and the center image is of George Bush, the tag line or headline should read "were all fucked". This has been turned round because the uni has been recently visited by foreign delegates from an educational initiative. Personally i don't agree with censorship especially at university as in one lecture we are shown animals being slaughtered and cows eyeballs being cut open in contextual studies and then we cant have a swear word on the wall. It just seems at odds with how how were meant to look at the meanings behind imagery and put them into context with what they mean and why there in the content of the image, in the first place. This image was from Time Magazine one of America's most respected magazines.
Then we looked at descriptive words and how we can use them to describe ourselves. The task we were given here was to pretend we were selling ourselves on E Bay and to use words to describe accurately our sale. We were given some example words as a starting point and told to do this at home.
So my description would be :-
Well Focused and Hard Working Photographer, hardly used. Is very Good at Problem Solving and can work well under Pressure. Is very Adaptable to almost any situation, works well Independently or with others and can be a great Team Leader when needed. Can be Responsible for any situation where Focus is needed and has a Positive Attitude. If Deliberate Imagery is needed then my Individual Outlook and Discipline are second to none. I have Empathy to anything i photograph and have a great Command and Deliberate structure to my image making. I pack a lot of punch for the money and i Guarantee you wont be disappointed with the Quality of work and the Gargantuan amount of Professional Conduct that i can bring into any situation.
I have highlighted the words so they stand out and we can see that good use of words can help us look professional and can really improve how people perceive us.
BUSINESS SEMINAR
First of all we went through HMRC ie the inland revenue and its role and how it works. If we want to be self employed we need to ring them up and register within 3 months. We need to do this if we take money for any work we have done.
Tax returns go from April to April each year. We can opt in to pay class 2 national insurance at £2.50 per week. This is optional but if we pay this and have no work then we can claim job seekers allowance, so it is worth doing.
We then looked at :-
SALES
EXPENSES
---------------
PROFIT AND LOSS
Everybody has a personal allowance of £7,475.
We are allowed to earn this amount after sales and and expenses have been took into account, before we have to pay tax or national insurance. Tax codes take the above figure of £7,475. and knocks off the last digit witch would leave the tax code 747 with an L on the end. After this amount you pay the basic rate which is 20% and there is also a class 4 national insurance at 9%.
We then looked through insurance and what we would need if working for ourselves. (public liability or professional insurance. Simply Buisness insurance was a good website to start with. If we need any help with setting up a business then go to the enterprise agency for help, they are very good at giving advise.
The next section was very helpful and was all about marketing. Two examples we were given was Mc Donalds and Coca Cola. Both will have started small but with mass marketing have grown into worldwide successful business empires.
We went through Segmentation and what it means for businesses. We need to break things down instead of looking at the whole this makes it easier.
1. Where are we from, and from this point try and start to market yourself in the nearest affluent area.
2. Look at getting a website .co.uk good to start with or if we want global .com. If we have a website do we need to add Google translator? Look into possibilities like this.
3. Look at competitors and what they are doing. Is there too many, how do they work, what is there market, how do they advertise.
4. Who are my customers. Everything we need to do needs to be customer focused. We looked at how nobody cares about you in business, only the whats in it for me attitude .
5. If making a cv, be clear on it. Its a good idea to start with three positive things that we could bring to a job. As photographers we can make our cvs interesting to look at .
6. Businesses should be heavily customer focused, if going for a job do your homework and taylor yourself it to suit the interview.
IDENTIFY TARGET MARKET. always remember this.
CASE STUDY MICHAEL ACKERMAN
What education or training did they undertake ?
It is hard to find facts on Michael Ackermans education. He was born in 1967 in Tel Aviv Israel. His family then emigrated over to America where they settled around New York (Queens) when he was around seven years old. He attended the state university of New York in Albany and began to become immersed in photography somewhere near the time he was about to graduate. He is now based in Berlin Germany.
Website bellow for the state university New York.
http://www.suny.edu/
How is there location related to their success ?
His work has a dark and almost grim appeal to it. He chooses people that are interesting to him and a lot of his subjects are of poor people in dire situations, he is interested in self destruction and what that means to different people. The people and locations he uses have an old European look to them and they look like they are from a forgotten era. This look could only come from where he chooses to photograph and its these locations where he has based his work. A great body of his work is based in Poland and is easily assessable from Berlin where he now lives. With Digital means of showing work and the use of galleries and publishing books, i don't think that it really matters where he is based as his success has shown his work has a very broad appeal.
Have they won any competitions ?
Michael won the Infinity Award for young photographer by the International center of photography in 1998.
http://www.icp.org/support-icp/infinity-awards
He also received a Nadar award in 1999 for his book "End Time City"
http://www.ephotozine.com/article/the-wpga-nadar-awards-for-students-12550
http://www.delpire.fr/Michael-Ackerman-end-time-city.htm
Who are their clients?
Michael exhibits a lot of his work and his work is published in books. He does portraits but mainly of the people he sees around where he is shooting. His clients would mainly be book publishers and art galleries. He also does different workshops and these include places of education and gallery workshops.
Have they published/exhibited work ?
So far Michael Ackerman has had three books published and they are:
"End City Time" publisher Nathan/Delpire 1999
"Fiction" publisher Nathan/Delpire 2001
"Half Life" publisher Delpire 2010
He has had various exhibitions based on his books and the "Half Life" exhibition toured round various European city galleries in places like Paris, Sete and Strasbourg.
Discuss the style of their photography; what kind of audience does it appeal to ?
His work would appeal to anybody interested in the human condition. His portraits seem to show people with desperate and stark lives in the context of their surroundings. He is very interested in the notion of human self destruction and he doesn't like to set up his photographs rather he sees them as accidents that happen in front of his lens. He is interested in what happens after he has took the image as when he looks over them hes sees things that he didn't see while taking the image. A lot of photographers hold his work in high regard and it would appeal to students like me studying Image making a great deal. I have managed to find his Facebook page and have listed this also below, i might even try and contact him to see if i can get him to talk about his work.
Has there work changed much over time ?
His work has changed little over time as his photographs all have a very distinct look to them . When we see his photographs you can easily recognize that they are his work. His location changes as he could photograph Berlin, India or Poland and the people within these areas but his imagery remains consistent throughout his body of work.
All images from Google images.
References taken from the various websites below.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lbsrq5im7gE
http://www.ackermanmichael.com/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mL-eUjMi3PY
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JpkllNQjP5g
http://fr-fr.facebook.com/pages/Michael-Ackerman/114781870383
http://500photographers.blogspot.com/2011/01/photographer-199-michael-ackerman.html
Looking around i found a guy called Igor Posner and his work is very similar to Ackermans.
http://igorposner.net/main.html
Also of note is the work by photographer Michael Philip Manheim who's work is of a similar vain but not quite as dark. His movement and of the layering of this into a single frame is exceptional. He was born in 1969 which make him the same age as me and got into photographer at an early age. This clip on YouTube shows some of his work.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xZGvlNhF7Zg&feature=related
I tried today to take a Portrait shot of my mother today but with digital rather than film and then Photoshop it into the style of a Michael Ackerman portrait. The first image below is one of he's portraits and the one underneath is my take on it. I am also going to use this image in my daily photograph project.
The image isn't to bad but you can tell it would look far better if i shot this on film as digital gives it a clean look. I will come back to this image and try using film also and experiment a little more.
CASE STUDY DARKSLIDE PHOTOGRAPHY
Darkslide photography was set up by Andy Simon in 2008. Andy has been passionate about photography since an early age and from around the age of 13 he talked his school into setting up a darkroom. Over the past three years his business has grown and he is now involved in producing a calender for the Help The Heroes charity. He loves Landscape photography and is interested in the world around him.
What education or training did they undertake ?
After training as a nurse for a couple of years he decided to go back to college and he enrolled on a course at Birmingham Metropolitan College.
http://www.mbc.ac.uk/
The course was a City And Guilds level 3 in photography and he has gone back to the college since and taken a full Diploma in Professional Photo Imaging.
How is there location related to their success ?
Being not far from London ie in Birmingham which is also a big city has certainly helped him gather more contacts than he would have done if he was located in a smaller town. Of course nowadays the internet is helping to network photographers to a wider audience and location is becoming less relevant to some photographers.
Have they won any competitions ?
He won first prize with an image taken from his mobile phone of an early morning sunrise. This was in the National City And Guilds yearly photographic competition level 3 Category. His mantra has always been that the best camera is the one you have with you at the time.
Who are their clients?
Fashion magazines would pay him for his work to be published in them. He runs his business from home and i am waiting to hear from him on help with answering this question. You can book him via his website for personal, location shooting and trade work.
His past clients have included:-
The above text has been copied from his website web address bellow.
http://www.darkslidephotography.co.uk/?page_id=1061
Have they published/exhibited work ?
He has been involved with the Help The Heroes calender and it is now in its third year of being published. Also he has had work published in Vogue, Elite magazine, Milk cow vintage fashion, The field, various local and national newspapers and his local council has used his work on their local banner.
His previous published work is :-
July 2010 – Interview and Image publication, Birmingham Post Newpaper
May 2010 – Image publication in over 20 local and national Newspapers – Pin-up for Heroes 2011 Calendar.
The above text has also been copied from his website at the address bellow.
http://www.darkslidephotography.co.uk/?page_id=1061
Discuss the style of their photography; what kind of audience does it appeal to ?
His work is varied ranging from landscape to fashion and calender work through to fun Diorama personal projects. He has always been interested on what other people consider the norms of fashion and beauty, he likes to push and experiment with this notion and now concentrates a lot of his work on alternative creative fashion work and burlesque imagery. His personal fun projects would appeal to photography students and children ( a lot of his Diorama work uses his children's Lego). While his calender work would appeal to anybody that has an interest in the charity it helps and his fashion work would appeal to anyone interested in alternative fashion, magazine company's and their readers.
Has there work changed much over time ?
His work seems to be evolving into two separate types of photography. The first is his fashion, pin up and calender work. The pin up for heroes calender is now in its third year and has grown more and more over this time. It has helped raise over £10,000 for the Help The Hero charity. He has become less involved with the running and organizing of the project and now concentrates on the taking of the photographs.
The other side of his work seems more fun and personal, it contains urban landscape (that has a nice Gothic feel to it.) and mini figure, set build and Diorama type images.
Images from Google Images.
http://darkslide.posterous.com/
http://www.darkslidephotography.co.uk/?page_id=9
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wKXwCctBLQU
http://www.profotos.com/education/referencedesk/masters/masters/dianearbus/dianearbus.shtml
http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/biography/arbus.html
Interesting reading and resource material was took from some of the above websites.
CV
In today's session we looked at how important it was for us to start developing our cv's and what they should contain. Below is my cv that i have used in the past but this will change over the next three years while i am at uni.
NAME: Michael John Holt
ADDRESS: 38 Leamington Avenue
Burnley
Lancashire
BB10 3HH
TELEPHONE: 01282 414421
MOBILE: 07530366918
PERSONAL SPECIFICATION:
I am punctual, reliable and work well under pressure. I can communicate well with people on various levels, including being able to deal with confrontational situations in an objective and non-judgmental manner. I have an outgoing personality which has helped me with staff supervision and in dealing with the public. Having held positions of trust, i have had to handle large sums of money and had to deal with stock ordering and rotation. My aim is to find employment in an environment with high standards and productivity and therefore achieving optimum job satisfaction.
EDUCATION:
1980-1985
Moorhead High School
Accrington
Lancashire
(G.C.S.E.) Geography, English, Mathematics, Home Economics and Community Studies.
(O LEVEL) Art.
1986-1988
Nelson and Colne College
Nelson
Lancashire
(City and Guilds) Art, Men's Hairdressing, Ladies Hairdressing and Advanced Hairdressing.
1991-1993
Nelson and Colne College
Nelson
Lancashire
(A Level) Photography, Fine Art and Art History.
(City and Guilds) English Language.
2011-Ongoing
Blackburn College
Blackburn
FDA Photographic Media
EMPLOYMENT:
2008-Present Our Eddie's Barber Shop
Manchester Road
Burnley
Lancashire
I have worked at this establishment under various roles since 2008. I have been in charge of the laddies department and held a managerial position here until i started university in 2011. I still work there and have now took on a part time positon whilst i am studying. I have my own client base and i am fully in charge over all aspects of the shop.
2005-2008 Wetherspoons PLC
Reeds cresent
Watford
I worked back for wetherspoons as a kitchen supervisor with duties including, health and safety, stock control, cooking, helping with the staff rotas and and the general running of a busy kitchen.
2002-2004 Jazz man Grooves
Burnley
Lancashire
Hair cutting, stock control, client consultations, hair colouring, and the day to day running of the business.
2001-2002 Hamleys toy shop
London
E1
This has to have been one of my favorite jobs ever. I worked at Hamleys for just under a year and the only reason i left was because of the low wages at the time and how expensive it was becoming to live in london. Duties included stock taking, sales, demonstrating toys and customer relations. Just before i left i was offered a promotion to supervisor but i had already made up my mind to come back up north.
1999-2001 The Mint
12 Eastsmithfield
London
E1
Kitchen manager in charge of busy kitchen. Duties included, menu planning, stock control, cooking, cleaning, supervising staff, health and safety, book keeping and profit control.
1998-1999 The Three Crowns
Mile end road
London
E2
Manager in charge of the day to day running of the business, stock control, book keeping, health and safety, organizing special charity events, staff supervision, menu planning and the cooking of the pub food.
1994-1998 Wetherspoons PLC
Reeds cresent
Watford
Duty manager working in several wetherspoon outlets incuding one of their flagship public houses in Liverpool street station. Whilst there i was part of a team that managed over fifty staff and duties included: Kitchen management, stock control, book keeping, health and safety and organizing deliveries in a red zoned area of the city of London.
1993-1994 Jazz man grooves
Burnley
Lancashire
Hair cutting, stock control, client consultations, hair colouring, and the day to day running of the business.
1985-1991 The Village Barber
Burnley
Lancashire
I started here on a three year apprenticeship that i completed and worked here for another three years. Duties included; Cutting hair, colouring hair, stock control helping with the training of new apprentices, entering hair competitions and consultation of clients.
INTERESTS:
These include photography, reading books, going to the cinema, visiting art galleries, swimming and cooking.I have also been the photographer for three of my friends weddings and all have been very happy with the photographs that i have taken.
REFLECTIVE PRACTICE
What is reflective practice ?
Reflective practice involves thoughtfully considering your own experiences as you make the connection between knowledge and practice, under the guidance of an experienced professional within your discipline.
Introduced by Donald Schon in 1987
5 ways of reflecting :-
1. Written
2. Video
3. Images
4. Voice Recording
5. Questions And Answers
We looked at Slater's website
http://weareslater.co.uk/
We looked at this website to see and compare an actual professional company in the media industry and to show us how we could and should be conducting/presenting ourselves.
We saw that they used Twitter, videos, a blog, they case studied themselves, they were on Google maps and the website was very easy to navigate. Using this information we can see how a professional business sells itself in an online environment. The more networking we do and the more information we can network about our self's the more people will recognize us.. We looked at one of the videos from the website and for only around a minute in length its amazing to see just how much information they put on it. They showed four case studies and then rounded it of with a fun one word weather report. I have linked it bellow.
http://weareslater.co.uk/slater-tv-latest-bulletin/
"If people can see you , they can understand you." This quote came from Martin our tutor today and is very relevant to today's lesson.
So then we looked at what we need to think about concerning the above information.
1. The skills you have now.
2. The skills needed to fulfill your career.
3. The skills needed to keep ahead of changes and updates.
4. The skills needed to move towards aspirations you hold for yourself.
We were then given 15 minutes to go and take a photograph that describes how it reflects us as a photographer. We had to use if we wanted any style or techniques we had learned so far on the course.
Then we looked at descriptive words and how we can use them to describe ourselves. The task we were given here was to pretend we were selling ourselves on E Bay and to use words to describe accurately our sale. We were given some example words as a starting point and told to do this at home.
So my description would be :-
Well Focused and Hard Working Photographer, hardly used. Is very Good at Problem Solving and can work well under Pressure. Is very Adaptable to almost any situation, works well Independently or with others and can be a great Team Leader when needed. Can be Responsible for any situation where Focus is needed and has a Positive Attitude. If Deliberate Imagery is needed then my Individual Outlook and Discipline are second to none. I have Empathy to anything i photograph and have a great Command and Deliberate structure to my image making. I pack a lot of punch for the money and i Guarantee you wont be disappointed with the Quality of work and the Gargantuan amount of Professional Conduct that i can bring into any situation.
I have highlighted the words so they stand out and we can see that good use of words can help us look professional and can really improve how people perceive us.
BUSINESS SEMINAR
First of all we went through HMRC ie the inland revenue and its role and how it works. If we want to be self employed we need to ring them up and register within 3 months. We need to do this if we take money for any work we have done.
Tax returns go from April to April each year. We can opt in to pay class 2 national insurance at £2.50 per week. This is optional but if we pay this and have no work then we can claim job seekers allowance, so it is worth doing.
We then looked at :-
SALES
EXPENSES
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PROFIT AND LOSS
Everybody has a personal allowance of £7,475.
We are allowed to earn this amount after sales and and expenses have been took into account, before we have to pay tax or national insurance. Tax codes take the above figure of £7,475. and knocks off the last digit witch would leave the tax code 747 with an L on the end. After this amount you pay the basic rate which is 20% and there is also a class 4 national insurance at 9%.
We then looked through insurance and what we would need if working for ourselves. (public liability or professional insurance. Simply Buisness insurance was a good website to start with. If we need any help with setting up a business then go to the enterprise agency for help, they are very good at giving advise.
The next section was very helpful and was all about marketing. Two examples we were given was Mc Donalds and Coca Cola. Both will have started small but with mass marketing have grown into worldwide successful business empires.
We went through Segmentation and what it means for businesses. We need to break things down instead of looking at the whole this makes it easier.
1. Where are we from, and from this point try and start to market yourself in the nearest affluent area.
2. Look at getting a website .co.uk good to start with or if we want global .com. If we have a website do we need to add Google translator? Look into possibilities like this.
3. Look at competitors and what they are doing. Is there too many, how do they work, what is there market, how do they advertise.
4. Who are my customers. Everything we need to do needs to be customer focused. We looked at how nobody cares about you in business, only the whats in it for me attitude .
5. If making a cv, be clear on it. Its a good idea to start with three positive things that we could bring to a job. As photographers we can make our cvs interesting to look at .
6. Businesses should be heavily customer focused, if going for a job do your homework and taylor yourself it to suit the interview.
IDENTIFY TARGET MARKET. always remember this.
CASE STUDY MICHAEL ACKERMAN
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| Michael Ackerman Poland 2003 |
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| Michael Ackerman Poland 2007 |
" Every picture is for me surprise and none of them are pre-imagined and every one of them, there is an accident that makes.... There is always an accident involved, that shows me something i didn't see when i was making the picture".
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| Michael Ackerman |
What education or training did they undertake ?
It is hard to find facts on Michael Ackermans education. He was born in 1967 in Tel Aviv Israel. His family then emigrated over to America where they settled around New York (Queens) when he was around seven years old. He attended the state university of New York in Albany and began to become immersed in photography somewhere near the time he was about to graduate. He is now based in Berlin Germany.
Website bellow for the state university New York.
http://www.suny.edu/
How is there location related to their success ?
His work has a dark and almost grim appeal to it. He chooses people that are interesting to him and a lot of his subjects are of poor people in dire situations, he is interested in self destruction and what that means to different people. The people and locations he uses have an old European look to them and they look like they are from a forgotten era. This look could only come from where he chooses to photograph and its these locations where he has based his work. A great body of his work is based in Poland and is easily assessable from Berlin where he now lives. With Digital means of showing work and the use of galleries and publishing books, i don't think that it really matters where he is based as his success has shown his work has a very broad appeal.
Have they won any competitions ?
Michael won the Infinity Award for young photographer by the International center of photography in 1998.
http://www.icp.org/support-icp/infinity-awards
He also received a Nadar award in 1999 for his book "End Time City"
http://www.ephotozine.com/article/the-wpga-nadar-awards-for-students-12550
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| Michael Ackerman "End Time City" |
Who are their clients?
Michael exhibits a lot of his work and his work is published in books. He does portraits but mainly of the people he sees around where he is shooting. His clients would mainly be book publishers and art galleries. He also does different workshops and these include places of education and gallery workshops.
Have they published/exhibited work ?
So far Michael Ackerman has had three books published and they are:
"End City Time" publisher Nathan/Delpire 1999
"Fiction" publisher Nathan/Delpire 2001
"Half Life" publisher Delpire 2010
He has had various exhibitions based on his books and the "Half Life" exhibition toured round various European city galleries in places like Paris, Sete and Strasbourg.
Discuss the style of their photography; what kind of audience does it appeal to ?
His work would appeal to anybody interested in the human condition. His portraits seem to show people with desperate and stark lives in the context of their surroundings. He is very interested in the notion of human self destruction and he doesn't like to set up his photographs rather he sees them as accidents that happen in front of his lens. He is interested in what happens after he has took the image as when he looks over them hes sees things that he didn't see while taking the image. A lot of photographers hold his work in high regard and it would appeal to students like me studying Image making a great deal. I have managed to find his Facebook page and have listed this also below, i might even try and contact him to see if i can get him to talk about his work.
Has there work changed much over time ?
His work has changed little over time as his photographs all have a very distinct look to them . When we see his photographs you can easily recognize that they are his work. His location changes as he could photograph Berlin, India or Poland and the people within these areas but his imagery remains consistent throughout his body of work.
All images from Google images.
References taken from the various websites below.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lbsrq5im7gE
http://www.ackermanmichael.com/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mL-eUjMi3PY
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JpkllNQjP5g
http://fr-fr.facebook.com/pages/Michael-Ackerman/114781870383
http://500photographers.blogspot.com/2011/01/photographer-199-michael-ackerman.html
Looking around i found a guy called Igor Posner and his work is very similar to Ackermans.
http://igorposner.net/main.html
Also of note is the work by photographer Michael Philip Manheim who's work is of a similar vain but not quite as dark. His movement and of the layering of this into a single frame is exceptional. He was born in 1969 which make him the same age as me and got into photographer at an early age. This clip on YouTube shows some of his work.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xZGvlNhF7Zg&feature=related
I tried today to take a Portrait shot of my mother today but with digital rather than film and then Photoshop it into the style of a Michael Ackerman portrait. The first image below is one of he's portraits and the one underneath is my take on it. I am also going to use this image in my daily photograph project.
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| Michael Akerman |
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| Portrait of my mother |
CASE STUDY DARKSLIDE PHOTOGRAPHY
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| One of the original designs for the logo. |
Darkslide photography was set up by Andy Simon in 2008. Andy has been passionate about photography since an early age and from around the age of 13 he talked his school into setting up a darkroom. Over the past three years his business has grown and he is now involved in producing a calender for the Help The Heroes charity. He loves Landscape photography and is interested in the world around him.
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| Andy Simon |
After training as a nurse for a couple of years he decided to go back to college and he enrolled on a course at Birmingham Metropolitan College.
http://www.mbc.ac.uk/
The course was a City And Guilds level 3 in photography and he has gone back to the college since and taken a full Diploma in Professional Photo Imaging.
How is there location related to their success ?
Being not far from London ie in Birmingham which is also a big city has certainly helped him gather more contacts than he would have done if he was located in a smaller town. Of course nowadays the internet is helping to network photographers to a wider audience and location is becoming less relevant to some photographers.
Have they won any competitions ?
He won first prize with an image taken from his mobile phone of an early morning sunrise. This was in the National City And Guilds yearly photographic competition level 3 Category. His mantra has always been that the best camera is the one you have with you at the time.
Who are their clients?
Fashion magazines would pay him for his work to be published in them. He runs his business from home and i am waiting to hear from him on help with answering this question. You can book him via his website for personal, location shooting and trade work.
His past clients have included:-
Box of Vintage Clothing Company -
2 shoot brief, 1 studio, 1 location at the Electric Cinema in
Birmingham, Images used for website design, product work, postcards,
leaflets and magazine publication
Pandoras Choice Clothing Company -
Provided costumes and accessories for the 2010 Pin up for Heroes Calendar
Burlesque or Bust Clothing Company
Work included shooting on location at Tidworth Army barracks on current generation tanks.
Heavenly Corsets
Provided costumes for the 2011 Pin up for Heroes launch party at the
Cafe de Paris in London, and costumes for the 2012 Pin-up for Heroes
calendar shot on location at Tedworth House, the current Rehabilitation
unit for Help for Heroes. Upcoming product shoot featuring custom corset
designs.
Sexyplus Corsets and Shoes
Studio photography for website, Graphics design work for Facebook pages
Waisted Creations Corsetry
Studio work, custom corset design product feature.
Off with her Head Millinery and Hat making
Supplied products for Pin up for Heroes.
Razorblade Mermaid Jewellery
Custom Jewellery product work
J Model Management
Work included various model casting sessions and. portfolio work
For Luna Vintage Swimwear
Promotional work for their swimwear designs as well as supplying costumes for the 2011 / 2012 Pin up for Heroes calendar
Bluebella Lingerie
Promotional work for Pin up for Heroes 2012
Phaze Clothing
Various product shoots featuring their clothing
Walsall Council
Currently providing image use for website / facebook / Twitter.
Other
Various agency / pack shot / product work.
The above text has been copied from his website web address bellow.
http://www.darkslidephotography.co.uk/?page_id=1061
Have they published/exhibited work ?
He has been involved with the Help The Heroes calender and it is now in its third year of being published. Also he has had work published in Vogue, Elite magazine, Milk cow vintage fashion, The field, various local and national newspapers and his local council has used his work on their local banner.
His previous published work is :-
Previous Exhibited work
July 2009 – 7511 Exhibition – Number 9 Gallery, Brindly place, Birmingham
Week long exhibition for ’7511′ show
June 2010 – ‘I’m a photographer, not a terrorist’ campaign, Birmingham Masonic Hall
Single night exhibition to promote their campain at the time raising awareness of photographers rights.
July 2010 – City and Guilds Photography competition Winners Show (won first prize award) – Morely Gallery, Westminster, London.
Week long exhibition featuring my first prize award for their national photography competition.
Recent Press and media publication
August 2011 -Interview with Deep down and Kinky website, and full gallery feature
Ongoing 2011 – Photography work for Pin-up for Heroes
June 2011 – Image Publication – Full Page, ‘The Field’ Magazine
January 2011 Double page spread – Milkcow magazine
Summer 2010 – Photography work for Pin-up for Heroes 2011 Calendar – full 12 image spread
September 2010 – Maxim online full 12 image feature.
August 2010 – Full page Publication, Bio and images – Photo Pro Magazine – September Edition
August 2010 – Image Publication, British Vogue (August edition) – Editorial on Vintage fashion.July 2010 – Interview and Image publication, Birmingham Post Newpaper
May 2010 – Image publication in over 20 local and national Newspapers – Pin-up for Heroes 2011 Calendar.
The above text has also been copied from his website at the address bellow.
http://www.darkslidephotography.co.uk/?page_id=1061
Discuss the style of their photography; what kind of audience does it appeal to ?
His work is varied ranging from landscape to fashion and calender work through to fun Diorama personal projects. He has always been interested on what other people consider the norms of fashion and beauty, he likes to push and experiment with this notion and now concentrates a lot of his work on alternative creative fashion work and burlesque imagery. His personal fun projects would appeal to photography students and children ( a lot of his Diorama work uses his children's Lego). While his calender work would appeal to anybody that has an interest in the charity it helps and his fashion work would appeal to anyone interested in alternative fashion, magazine company's and their readers.
Has there work changed much over time ?
His work seems to be evolving into two separate types of photography. The first is his fashion, pin up and calender work. The pin up for heroes calender is now in its third year and has grown more and more over this time. It has helped raise over £10,000 for the Help The Hero charity. He has become less involved with the running and organizing of the project and now concentrates on the taking of the photographs.
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| Older photographs 1 |
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| Older Photographs 2 |
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| Newer work 1 |
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| Newer work2 |
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| Calender Article Sunday Mirror |
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| November Sample |
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| Taken From Flickr 1 |
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| Taken from Flickr 2 |
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| Lego Diorama |
Images from Google Images.
http://darkslide.posterous.com/
http://www.darkslidephotography.co.uk/?page_id=9
